treehugger podcast

grove & grit launches with local restoration in Hilltop, Dublin Bay oyster recovery, UN World Restoration Flagships, and an ecological reckoning on war, climate, and accountability — plus two essential upcoming reads from Emma Marris and Clare Follmann.
This episode is released during the week of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr's birthday, grounding restoration work in a shared ethic of collective liberation.
Local Action (Tacoma)
Tacoma Tree Foundation - Green Blocks: Hilltop
A neighborhood-based urban forestry program supporting residents with tree selection, permits, delivery, and planting assistance.
🔗 https://tacomatreefoundation.org/green-blocks
January 28 Webinar  - "Plants as Teachers, Messengers & Climate Partners"
A Tacoma Tree Foundation webinar with Michael Yadrick on habitat care as climate adaptation and what plants reveal about heat, water, and future conditions.
🗓 January 28, 2026 | 12–1 PM (PT)
🔗 https://tacomatreefoundation.org/calendar/plants-as-teachers 
International Restoration
Dublin Bay Oyster Reef Restoration (Ireland)
The Green Ocean Foundation is restoring European flat oyster reefs in Dún Laoghaire Harbour using broodstock baskets, volunteer maintenance, and scientific monitoring with Dublin City University.
🔗 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jan/18/dublin-bay-oyster-reefs-restoration
UN World Restoration Flagships
UNEP and FAO recognition of large-scale restoration initiatives anchored in Indigenous and local leadership, including shellfish reef recovery in Australia under the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration.
🔗 https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/press-release/indigenous-and-local-action-brings-back-nature-un-recognizes-three
🔗 https://www.decadeonrestoration.org/world-restoration-flagships
Harm & Repair
Environmental reporting and analysis on how war damages soil, water, air, food systems, and long-term restoration capacity, with emerging efforts to document harm for accountability and repair.
International Committee of the Red Cross — Environmental damage and armed conflict
🔗 https://international-review.icrc.org/articles/protection-natural-environment-time-armed-conflict  
UNEP — Environmental risks and devastation in Gaza
🔗 https://www.unep.org/resources/report/environmental-impact-escalation-conflict-gaza-strip  
Environmental Law Institute — Environmental damage in Ukraine and paths to accountability
🔗 https://www.eli.org/vibrant-environment-blog/preventing-environmental-exploitation-armed-conflict-how-ukraine


 
Good Reads
Emma Marris et al. — "Many Pasts, Many Futures" (forthcoming)
A future-oriented exploration of species reshuffling, conservation values, and how restoration can prevent extinctions without clinging to a single ecological past.
🔗 https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/0BE558C6B4F353F4AC57E596205C3ABF
Clare Follmann — Scapegoat: What the Invasive Species Story Gets Wrong (AK Press, forthcoming)
A sharp critique of invasive species narratives and how ecological fear stories can obscure deeper political and economic drivers of harm.
🔗 https://www.akpress.org/scapegoat.html
Music for this episode is from Grey Room "Down the Rabbit Hole" found on YouTube Audio Library.

What happens when we trace the history of our forests? Not just through trees, but through people, policy, and place? In this episode, I talk with Jennifer Ott, Executive Director of HistoryLink.org, Washington's free online encyclopedia of history. Jennifer is an environmental historian, author of Olmsted in Seattle: Creating a Park System for a Modern City, and co-author of Waterway: The Story of Seattle's Locks and Ship Canal. She brings a deep knowledge of Seattle's reshaped landscapes; it's filled tidelands, leveled hills, and rechanneled rivers, and a lifelong commitment to accessible public history.
We dig into HistoryLink's new Forest History Project, a wide-ranging effort to tell the story of Washington's forests through essays, oral histories, and educational curricula. Funded by the Washington Department of Archaeology and Historic Preservation, the project includes over a dozen new feature essays - from Indigenous land stewardship to timber company towns, the Douglas fir to the Northwest Forest Plan - as well as 15 interviews with key figures from forestry, conservation, and tribal leadership.
We talk about the relationship between ecological change and historical narrative, the legacies of environmental thinkers, and how public history can shape our understanding of climate adaptation, land stewardship, and just futures. This conversation is a reminder that forests are more than trees; they're stories, struggles, and visions of what's possible.
Resources and Links
Forest History Project (HistoryLink):
https://historylink.org/File/23334


Learn more about Jennifer Ott's work 
Olmsted in Seattle: Creating A Park System for a Modern City
Seattle at 150: Stories of the City Through 150 Objects
Waterway: The Story of Seattle's Locks and Ship Canal


This episode features music from The Grey Room / Golden Palms. Find more at:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCoOTOoAbEhY-WD_XhkvJBJg

Upcoming Event: Plants as Teachers
I'll be giving a talk on January 28, called Plants as Teachers, Messengers and Climate Partners: Habitat Care and Adaptation in a Warming World,  hosted by Tacoma Tree Foundation. As climate change reshapes our ecosystems, ecological restorationist Michael Yadrick invites us to rethink so-called "weeds" as allies in adaptation, revealing how plants respond to stress, guide our land care decisions, and help us imagine better futures. Register here:
https://tacomatreefoundation.org/calendar/plants-as-teachers
Support the Podcast + Connect
Treehugger Podcast is a labor of love. If you'd like to help me cover costs and keep episodes like this one flowing, you can support the show here:
Venmo: @myadrick
PayPal: paypal.me/myadrick
CashApp: $michaelyadrickjr

In this episode, Michael talks with evolutionary biologist and urban ecologist Dr. Elizabeth Carlen about how cities - shaped by war, politics, religion, and everything in between - are evolving alongside the wildlife that calls them home. Liz is an urban evolutionary biologist whose research explores how human social structures, from redlining to sacred groves, shape the genetics, behavior, and survival of city-dwelling creatures like squirrels and pigeons.
We dive into the often-overlooked ways that social histories leave their mark not just on human communities, but on the DNA of the animals that live among us. From prayer animal releases and colonial land grabs to the silent corridors of segregation - era parks, we trace how the built environment (and the power structures behind it) drive biological change.
Together, we explore how urban wildlife, often seen as out-of-place or alien, can actually reveal deep truths about the endurance of life, adaptation, and the stories we tell ourselves about nature in cities. From the sidewalks of New York to the treetops of St. Louis and the birds of Mexico City, this is a rich and fascinating conversation on the entangled evolution of people and animals in the urban jungle.
Episode Links
The Conversation article:  War, politics and religion shape wildlife evolution in cities
Dr. Elizabeth Carlen's website:  www.elizabethcarlen.com 
Nature Cities review article "Legacy effects of religion, politics and war on urban evolutionary biology": https://www.nature.com/articles/s44284-025-00249-3


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Music from the episode: Alge, MK2, Lish Grooves

In this special episode, we welcome author and storyteller Martin Goodman to explore the extraordinary living story of the Bishnoi people—a community in the Western Thar Desert of India who have made protecting life, in all its forms, their deepest devotion.
Three centuries ago, 363 Bishnoi villagers led by Amrita Devi gave their lives to defend the sacred khejri trees from destruction, speaking the words still taught to Bishnoi children today: "My head for a tree is a cheap price to pay."  But the Bishnoi are not just a story of sacrifice from the past—they are still here, still tending, still fighting for the beings and ecosystems that sustain us all.
Martin shares the serendipitous journey that brought him to the Bishnoi, the profound lessons he learned among them, and the creation of his new book, My Head for a Tree: The Extraordinary Story of the Bishnoi, Guardians of Nature. We talk about devotion, care as daily practice, the ecology of love, and what it means to live in relationship with the smallest creatures.
We hope this conversation reminds you:
Love is not only an action. It is also a meditation.
A daily practice of belonging.
A vow, renewed again and again, to defend life-affirming practices.
✨ Highlights include:
The origin story behind the term "treehugger" and why it still matters today
The 29 rules of the Bishnoi faith: a life built around ecological care
The emotional and spiritual legacy of Amrita Devi's sacrifice
How the Bishnoi resist extractive forces with devotion and fierce tenderness
Reflections on love as an ecosystem, not just an emotion
How we can follow the Bishnoi's example without appropriating their sacred ways
🌱 Resources and Links:
📚 Buy My Head for a Tree by Martin Goodman:
Bookshop.org Link
📖 Learn more about Martin Goodman, the author of twelve books of award-winning nonfiction and fiction, including Client Earth and Suffer & Survive. He is emeritus professor of Creative Writing at the University of Hull and the director of the Philip Larkin Centre for Poetry and Creative Writing. Martin lives between Los Angeles and London with his husband, environmentalist and Zen priest James Thornton.
Martin Goodman's Website
Martin Goodman's Substack Letters Home
🌿 Subscribe to Grit & Grove:
Grit & Grove on Substack — my essays and reflections on planetary health, justice and ecological restoration, and imagining better ecological futures.
🎶 Listen to the treehugger podcast lightning songs
🌼 About the My Head for a Tree Co-Contributors:
Ram Niwas Bishnoi Budhnagar is a leading Bishnoi activist, former leader of the Bishnoi Tiger Force, and president of the Youth Congress of Jodhpur. His work continues the Bishnoi tradition of fiercely protecting trees, animals, and ecosystems across Rajasthan and beyond.
💌 If you loved this episode... Please consider sharing it with a friend, a loved one, or someone who might be looking for new ways to imagine care and belonging. You can also support the podcast by subscribing, leaving a review, or simply telling someone, "Hey, this made me think differently about what love can look like." Your listening, your sharing, your tending — it all matters.
Thank you for being here. 🌿

We are joined by Philip Stielstra, founder of PropagationNation, to explore the fascinating world of coast redwoods (Sequoia sempervirens) and giant sequoias (Sequoiadendron giganteum). Philip shares his inspiring journey from Seattle Tree Ambassador to becoming a leader in assisted migration, helping these ancient giants find a new future in the Pacific Northwest.
We dive into:
The unique traits that make coast redwoods and giant sequoias candidates for assisted migration, including their fire resistance, drought tolerance, and pest resistance.
Challenges such as slow seed production, low natural regeneration, and the ecological and ethical considerations of introducing these species to non-native environments.
Insights into Indigenous perspectives on land stewardship and how they inform restoration practices.
Propagation Nation's Redwood Test Plot Grant Initiative, which studies the viability of these iconic trees in new environments.
This episode builds on themes from previous treehugger podcast episodes featuring Dr. Sally Aitken on climate-smart forestry, Chelsey Armstrong on Forest Gardens and Indigenous knowledge systems, and last but not least the Climate Feels episode exploring the cultural dimensions of climate adaptation.
Access key resources: PropagationNation website; Appendix 1 Selection of Seeds and Other Propagules for Restoration of the SER International Standards for Ecological Restoration; and, the Assisted Migration Best Management Practices for Pacific Northwest Habitat Restoration Projects. These key documents guide practitioners in selecting seeds and propagules for restoration projects, focusing on genetic diversity, climate-resilient traits, and future climatic scenarios.
Key Takeaways:
Assisted migration is an essential strategy for adapting forests to climate change, ensuring that both trees and ecosystems can thrive in evolving conditions.
By blending science, ethics, and community involvement, we can create adaptive ecosystems for tomorrow's challenges.
Coast redwoods and giant sequoias represent not just ecological resilience but also a vision of hope for future forests.
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